QUIZ TIME
by MuddyWolf
Summary: Dr. Topper visits Mushroom Kindgom. Read it and weep.


Legal Stuff: Dr. Topper and all Mario-related stuff doesn't belong to me. It's Nintendo. And it seems Square had a hand in the RPG, so I guess they belong to Square? In any case, not mine. This is a fic on (guess who!) Read it—or not—and tell me what you think.Non-canon, because too much canon—what's the point? Aligned Dr. Topper with Bowser because Smithy blows. Started: 7/19/06 (Way past its expiration date)

QUIZ TIME

By Blue9Tiger

A lone Mushroom stood on the tile, slick from the sweat that had dripped down his body, collecting in grimy pools underneath his feet. The stone walls, his diabolical torturer, everything in front of him swam in blurred masses of color, and he stumbled on withering feet, dropping in a dead faint in his own sweat and tears in a writhing heap.

Red dripped from the green devil's hammer.

"TIME'S UP! YOU LOSE!" the creature raucously laughed, and sank his teeth into a wad of fruit. He set down his fruit-stained hammer, disappered and then re-appeared in front of the Mushroom, picked him up by the cap and unceremoniously tossed him out the red door. Having disposed of the limp—(and apparently brainless)—fungus, he climbed atop his stone platform and stared at his poor yellow tile that didn't even get up off the ground.

The yellow tile stared blankly at the distressed black eyes. The snarky attitude melted away and was replaced by one of desperation.

"They just don't grow 'em like tbey used to," cried the green reptile into a handkerchief of obnoxiously similiar hue. He, his hammer, and his handkerchief looked almost out of place amongst the gray of the stone walls. His hulking shadow turned the stone black as he paced--a measly remedy, really--maybe he could clear his brain under the helmet that was the standard armor for Hammer Brothers.

But in his brain there were nothing but Mushrooms! And after a while they started to look all the same..and it blended into one big Mushroom in his green head!

He opened the book of his brain and looked up his current cadre of trivia questions.   
WhatdidCarroboscisturnintoWhatisthefullnameofJohhnyWhoistheultimateenemyinthisadventure---

It just occured to him that when getting into this Trivia Mindset (Patent pending) his brain expanded from the size of a Hammer Brother to one of a Nimbus person and his vocabulary and eloquence increased a thousand fold!

But what would you expect from the genius Quiz Master, Dr. Topper?

But as you saw earlier, a tragedy befell Dr. Topper. No one had won his Trivia game in thirty years! 

"None of 'em can get past the first room!" he lamented. "They're hopeless! They're idiots! I lowered the game's difficulty level by 200--" He winced at the massive loss of intellectual quality his once-renowned trivia game sustained, at the agonizing ache in his gut. "Now I ask 'em "What is Frogfucius", and "What does Mushroom Boy like to eat"---" He dragged himself desperately through the rusty red door that hadn't been opened in years. "And they STILL get it wrong!" In an attempt to comfort himself he closed his eyes and remembered the good old days. "How many statues are in Nimbus Land---How many Fake Mushrooms form Yaridovich--Who is Culex?" He stumbled into the next room and with deep sorrow embraced the cobweb-entangled barrels. "My precious barrels--no one has counted you in years...the triathalon contestants all tried to kill me when I lied to them about keeping them in this room for thirty years...(It told them it was three minutes)..not to mention my Rock Candy's expired...and the balls!" His eyes grew misty with nostalgia. "They're RUSTING..RUSTING!" His pacing grew more frantic. He grabbed the sides of his head and started convulsing. "I've spent countless days arranging and re-arranging these simple--EASY puzzles for the public to enjoy---Now---Mustache.." His eyes grew misty once more. "He stank of mushrooms and pasta. I still wonder why he hasn't shaved off that eyesore of a mustache. He's a--" He made a repulsed noise. "--human." But--" He threw open with difficulty the even-more rusted doors of the last chamber. "He found my puzzles to be a cakewalk! And he took all my Rock Candy!" He beamed with pride at the thrill of that human's wit matched against his--but then the smile fell when he realized that was in the distant past.

They're stupid! They're mindless!

They---

Dr. Topper's black eyes widened immensely as he was hit with a burst of precise calculated inspiration.

"They don't get out that much..But if I started askin' them about local affairs----" His twisted mouth began to curl into a semi-evil grin. He rubbed his claws together in the way that a figure of pure unmitigated evil would, and his cackling reverberated through the stone chamber while a menacing red light swallowed---

Well, that's what he WOULD have done if the place had windows.

Instead he packed up his hammer and the book in his brain, and vanished.

+-+-+

Ah, the Mushroom Kingdom. A tranquil domain in which all manner of Mushrooms found peace and prosperity--(actually it was only the ones with the spots on their caps--all the striped ones settled in Rose Town)

The Mushroom kids romped and frolicked in front of the house at the edge of town, in the long grasses that waved lazily in the gentle wind. The sounds of their gleeful laughter caused the whole world to laugh with them. A Goomba that doubled as a ball sailed in an arc which momentarily eclipsed the sun before falling into the hands of a carefree, kid, who tossed it to another one closer to the ominous-looking bushes. The kid missed it, and the Goomba rolled into the bushes. The kid ran to fetch the brown, fanged ball, when he stopped dead in his tracks. He was frozen, paralyzed in absolute terror.

"Now's my chance to get away---Sir! I didn't see you there, Sir!"

The tiny almost-Mushroom saluted and became instantly non-ball-like. "I apologize for my negligence, Sir!"

The reptile didn't even hear the Goomba, consumed with the intent of subdueing his helpless prey.

Now that we are describing the horror of the Mushroom kids, who were now all cowering and/or screaming in fright, we might as well describe the root of their fear.

The reptile was at least three times as big as them, with a menacing beak, a helmet and a hammer in his heavy fist--armed to the teeth--a tail that whipped dangerously close to them, a shell that could crush ten grown Mushrooms, and a terrible gleam in his soulless narrowed eyes.

And like a nightmare, the green beast was gone.

The Mushroom kids fled in a a panic, screaming at the top of their lungs "Monster, monster!" Adult Mushrooms started pouring into the square from their homes, and the town was in an uproar. By now the ball Goomba had scurried into the bushes and from there to Vista Hill. How lucky he was that Dr. Topper himself came to save him from those awful kids!

The interrupted game was the least of the kids' worries.

"What exactly did you see?"

"A m-m-monster--i-it w-was s-seven f-f-feet tall!" cried a Mushroom into his mother's face, and the mother held her child tightly, her eyes darting nervously. The old shopkeeper, or more commonly known as the Anal Shopkeeper, stood on the most elevated spot in town and started yelling for quiet.

"Now, listen here! I know what you're all going to say. Where's Mario? Mario will save us! But Mario had some urgent business in Italy or someplace like that, and until he comes back we're on our own." He pulled out something from inside his pocket, black and round. "After he left I took the liberty of talking with the Chancellor. The Chancellor agreed to have an army formed, which at this moment is massed on the border of our Kingdom: We'll wipe out that monster for good!"

A tremendous cheer thundered as loud as the tiny voices of the Mushrooms could manage.

The ranks of the Mushrooms waited at the border, ready to light their Bob-ombs. The Chancellor was nowhere to be seen, because he had locked himself in the castle. Thus the grand army was more like an angry mob. So the grand army/angry mob stood at the ready, while the harsh sun beat upon their spotted caps.

One of them was starting to shrivel from lack of shade when their mortal enemy appeared, ironically sauntering out of the grocery store. He had a Non-Living Mushroom (Those were perfectly fine to eat, even by Mushrooms!) in his mouth and was chewing away. All of a sudden all fourteen of the Mushrooms including the Anal Shopkeeper aimed their lighted Bob-ombs at the monster.

"A little touchy, aren't we?" snickered the green Hammer Brother. He popped the rest of the mushroom in his mouth, licked his face, and raised his hammer. The Mushrooms raised their Bob-ombs, that had a very long fuse.

The enemy struck hard and fast and with deadly precision.

"What is the boy at the inn's high score in Beetle Mania?  
200  
1000000000  
5000."

A soldier/angry mob member got so confused that he threw the Bob-omb harmlessly at the flower bed. A merciless beating ensued. The enemy started to tap his foot. He twirled his hammer by the handle. 

"5000! And he's wasted enough time on that stupid Game Guy!" An exasperated Mushroom doing laundry blurted. She then turned in the direction of the inn, stormed in, and dragged out the purple-spotted boy furiously hammering the buttons on the Game Boy, and chaos ensued as they both started screaming at each other. 

"It's Game BOY, ma--geez, get it right!"

"CORRECT!" yelled the monster in his obnoxious voice. "What color is the Chancellor's mustache?  
Red  
Brown  
White."

The silence was immediately broken as the chancellor yelled "Brown!" out through one of the windows of the castle.

"CORRECT! What color are the beds in the castle?  
Blue  
Red  
Orange."

"Re---blue!"

"CORRECT! Who does the little girl want to marry?  
Bowser  
Mario  
Booster."

And so it went on. Pretty soon the entire town was answering in unison. Of course, it wasn't like Dr. Topper to make the game ridiculously easy, and he delivered a deadly blow to the trained soldiers/angry mob when he asked them the identity of the Man Who Knows Everything behind the house. Several of them crumbled under the sheer cascade of questions---others from racking their brains, and others because they didn't have breakfast that morning.  
Whatever the case the hours wore on, the Bob-ombs were diffused, and the grand army fell.

But there were still the kids, who had found stones and were about to hurl them at the enemy. They didn't fall for the foe's tricks. It was so obvious what he was doing...but no, they didn't fall for it.

The Hammer Brother's expression didn't change, and he pulled some hard material out from his helmet. His trump card.

"What am I?  
A quiz-obsessed freak  
A Hammer Brother  
Gone."

Someone started to call out the letters "fr", and his mouth was formed into an "e" when the enemy vanished, and in its place was Rock Candy. The survivors could only be grateful that the monster hadn't attacked, and they cheered at the effectiveness of the grand army, and armed themselves with Rock Candy, since not one of the Bob-ombs had hit their target.

+-+-+

The mad Quiz Master once again was atop his platform, drilling a Mole.  
His fragmented sanity was apparent by his crazed grin and widened eyes burning with impassioned delight at his mandatory game.

"Who is selling a Lucky Jewel?"

"A Mushroom."

"Which trampoline is found in the mines?"

"The smilin' one."

And as he drilled the Mole into the ground, his soul fluttered and he bathed in the elation. In a way, he loathed changing the questions just because half the world was mired in embarassing ignorance. But---

The Mole had gotten eight out of twelve right, and the rusted red doors creaked open to reveal a roomful of barrels. The Mole's fur stood up in shock and gazed up at the huge stack of barrels. He could feel the gleeful eyes of the cracked Hammer Brother burning into his back, twitching in an fit of sudden nervousness.

"Heh-heh. Just wait 'till the last room...You got once chance--How many barrels are there?

24

25

26."

The Mole knew he was beaten. But at least he had survived the first round of punishment.

"GAME OVER!"


End file.
